Richard

My penultimate #BBCTelevisionShakespeare was a stodgy and uninspired #LovesLaboursLost. They can't all be brilliant, and it's a notoriously wordy edifice to begin with, but dressing it up as a Regency farce did it no favours, with the text seeming to overwhelm / letterboxd.com/film/loves-l...

/ a cast who - besides Maureen Lipman as the Princess - were pretty much interchangeable. Even Berowne and Rosalind (a curiously tanned Jenny Agutter) failed to make the required impact, leaving us wondering why we should care about any of the four pairings. John Wells was at least having fun /

Only two #BBCTelevisionShakespeare episodes to go after a splendid #MuchAdoAboutNothing, with Cherie Lunghi and Robert Lindsay in fine form and clearly having a blast. It rises above the shonky sets because the entire cast know exactly what they're doing / letterboxd.com/film/much-ad...

/ and some intriguing interpretations, particularly Vernon Dobtcheff's gloomy and sardonic Don John, not so much evil as fed up with everyone else having fun. An entire sitcom's worth of Watchmen, with Michael Elphick's Dogberry done about as well as I've ever seen it, and bonus Clive Dunn! /

Tonight's #CriterionChallenge task was to pick something from the Letterboxd 250 list: letterboxd.com/hetchy/list/... Has to be from the Criterion Collection, available in Canada, and previously unwatched, which narrowed it down a fair bit. I also wanted to avoid English language, so..

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare reached the tricky #Pericles. Certainly not all by Shakespeare, it's an intractable thing, which a starry cast did their level best to keep on the straight and narrow, not least Mike Gwilym, whose bruised and set upon Pericles convinced 🧵 letterboxd.com/film/pericle...

However, it's hard to get past the whole "Now here's the chorus to tell you instead of showing you what happened" parts, which break up the flow of the thing somewhat artlessly, while reminding you (well it did me) that Shakespeare did all this stuff much better in other plays. Still, I'd never/

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare reached the tricky #Pericles. Certainly not all by Shakespeare, it's an intractable thing, which a starry cast did their level best to keep on the straight and narrow, not least Mike Gwilym, whose bruised and set upon Pericles convinced 🧵 letterboxd.com/film/pericle...

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare this week was a fascinating #KingJohn, with Leonard Rossiter perfectly cast in his final role on TV. The wordiness was mitigated by some excellent acting, particularly in the lead and by Claire Bloom as Constance, although the star was / letterboxd.com/film/the-lif...

/ George Costigan as a magnificent Bastard, serving as a kind of Greek Chorus clearly impatient with his King's vacillating. Kudos too to an imperious Mary Morris, an all-too-fleetingly seen Phyllida Law and John Thaw giving Hubert all the required pathos. It is too long, but, again, that's /

For some reason, I woke up with the notion that it was time for a rebrand on the Bairns site. I’m sure I could have done it in AI in about five minutes, but I used to be part of a collective who published a fanzine, so it was time to get out the virtual Letraset and go fully DIY.

#BBCTelevisionShakespeare 31 was a valiant attempt at #2GentlemenOfVerona. Not entirely successful, mainly because of the source material, to be fair. Made in 1983, so Proteus and Valentine are basically George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, but both are solid, unlike/ letterboxd.com/film/the-two...

/Frank Barrie's Sir Eglamour who appeared to be channelling Henry Irving or something. Sound balance was way out of whack; rustling dresses masked the voices from time to time, and the music, while period appropriate and well-played, dominated the acting to an uncomfortable degree./

#CriterionChallenge 75 was another 'choose from this list' one - list to follow in thread. From a pretty comprehensive list, I did the less obvious thing, and went with 'Head', because how many of us can say they've actually sat down and watched it? Well, I have now. letterboxd.com//film/head/

Long overdue light relief to all the history and tragedy of recent weeks, today's #BBCTelevisionShakespeare was a frothy yet expertly crafted #ComedyOfErrors Both sets of twins doubled by Michael Kitchen and a startlingly effective Roger Daltrey, this had me/ letterboxd.com/film/the-com...

As I was still running a little behind on the #CriterionChallenge, I added in one from the next topic: Glorious Restorations (full list in next post). Quite unlike anything I've ever seen before, this is a mesmerising Kazakh historical drama: letterboxd.com/film/the-fal...

This week's #BBCTelevisionShakespeare was the long-awaited #Macbeth, which did not disappoint; Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotaire giving intense and idiosyncratic interpretations which shone new light on a well-known text. The set was cold and dark, as it should be. letterboxd.com/film/macbeth...